Friday, June 25, 2010

This afternoon Debi was on a roll talking about when Stacy's cure from MND sets the neurological world on fire and she goes on to write a book about her experiences and then this book gets picked up by Hollywood and made into a feature film. Just quietly I think Debi liked Julia Roberts as a candidate to play her.

Stacy and I carried this on and were talking about who would play all the parts in the movie of her fight with Motor Neuron Disease - Gambling in Reno, a high stakes medical adventure. The highlight of this is when we decided that the guy who plays the Asian gang boss type guy in 'The Hangover' would be best suited to play the head doctor here at the Medical Centre, Dr. Bruce Fong DO, HMD. WTF

What the Fong?!

I'm proud of us for still having a great time and laughing about something everyday. We have had some hard days over the last year and a half, this week included however I don't think there has been a full day in which Stacy and I haven't been able to laugh together. Plenty of half days like that but maybe not any full days. We are blessed by that.

Righto so here is what is going on. Stacy's blood test for Lyme disease came back last week and it was positive. This means that there is a bacteria infecting Stacy's cells that is very hard to kill and causes lots of problems. Many people at this clinic have Lyme disease. This clinic seems to have worked out a way to kill Lyme disease, we think they will do that for Stacy. This could be extremely good.

Other things that have been identified are that she has some heavy metals in her body and a range of food and environmental allergies. The clinic also has a long history of successfully dealing with these issues.

Her treatment at the moment continues to involve daily detox IVs at the clinic, plenty of oral supplements, a battery of subcutaneous and inter-muscular medicine injections delivered both at the clinic and by Dr. Neild at home. She is also continuing with 'the push' which is the nightly injection of medicine that induces some kind of major immune system reaction characterised by shivers and shakes, muscle tightness and intense ache and a fever. She also intermittently during the week does some massage, some lymphatic drainage therapy and some liver cleanse theory.

There is a new therapy on the horizon which they call neural therapy. This involves a series of acupuncture style (along meridian lines) injections of medicine into her lower back and legs. This is designed to open up the energy pathways for her legs and improve the ability of her nerves to synapse. It will involved around 100 subcutaneous injections during the session.

The treatment continues to be hard work physically, emotionally and mentally. I've been working harder this week at being excited about the therapy rather than being skeptical of the therapy, its been good.

The theory that we are working with is that by dealing with all the imbalances that are present in Stacy's body - dissfuctional liver, hyperactive allergic reactions, confused immune system, heavy metals and Lyme disease - she will be in a good state of general health. Once all these blocks to healthy function are removed then her body will be given its best chance to holt or reverse the degeneration that she has experienced over the last 16 months.

Currently we haven't seen any signs of that reverse yet. We do believe that this clinic will be able to successfully deal with everything they have found. The Fonger hopes to see some clinical (functional) change before we leave in the next couple of weeks. We think that we are in the right place for this to happen.

Tawnya has gone home to Great Falls. Shannon one of Stacy's college room mates, bridesmaids and general sister from another mister has come and gone. The presence of these intimate friends has been excellent. Thanks girls, nice work.

Sorry that you have to put up with me writing instead of Stacy. She is still firing along with wonderful moments of Stacyness (caring for and encouraging the other patients at the clinic, achieving and verbalising moments of uplifting perspective, humorously negotiating and disarming the potentially embarrassing, uncomfortable and disheartening aspects of her daily life and making the people around her feel as though they are uniquely special and worthwhile) she just doesn't have the emotional energy available to write them up on this blog.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Its Sunday evening after 2 and a half weeks here in Reno. It has been a pretty nice weekend. Unlike last Saturday this week Stacy woke up feeling pretty good and refreshed. We have had a couple of nice relaxing days enjoying the excellent weather, eating out and resting up. Stacy has punched a 2 top quality afternoon naps, we think they are pretty important for her to catch up on the week of treatment action.

At noon today the T Ray, Junior Klein, the sweetest young lady ever to come out of Great Falls high Tawnya Gilchrist arrived in town. Tawnya is Stacy's great mate from back in the school days as is going to stay with us for a week and help ease the experience for us all.

We are excited to have Tawnya in town for the next week.

Last week was a tiring week. We ramped up the treatment intensity which was hard on Stacy's body due to the induced fever reaction that she experienced nightly. We are still waiting for some test results to come back however we are getting into the rhythm of the treatment and expect a similar week this week. We still feel like there is value in the treatment and are hopeful that after we have survived our time here that Stacy's body will be able to do some healing on its own free from toxins, pathogens and whatever else is disrupting her cells.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

It is Friday evening, the end of a week and the end of our 7th day of treatment at the SIMC in Reno. Overall we are going good, we've got one brave girl on our hands here people.

The first few days of our treatment focused on detoxification of Stacy's body, with extra attention on her liver. It was also a time of testing - blood, excretions and lung function.
Some results from this time are:
-Stacy's Liver is not able to keep up with its filtering job, so her red blood cells and her plasma have accumulated various imperfections.
-She has some small tube like bacteria in her blood called spirochetes. These are linked to a range of diseases - fire up google if you are keen.
-Her immune system is not functioning effectively. In some aspects it is not reacting to destroy antigens as it should, and in other situation it is hyper sensitive to some antigens and is over reacting and wearing itself out creating a response.

-There are still tests out for parasites, viruses and diseases.
-Her vital capacity (functional lung volume) is at the same level as it was a month ago.

The second phase of the treatment started yesterday and it is full on. At the end of each day of getting IV treatments, pro neural system and anti virus injections Stacy is given an injection of something that is designed to reset her immune system. It generates an intense fever that so far (2 nights) has only spiked as high as 102 degrees F, however we are only at Level 1 of 10.

It is a pretty rough ride. It takes about 45mins from the time of injection to start and then it starts quick. So far it has been characterised by 45mins of extreme cold feelings coupled with body stiffness and shakes that rattle her teeth. Then it fires up a fever for about 2 hours that leaves her exhausted and sore. In the morning she is very stiff and moving is harder and more painful than usual. It is called the Push and most of the patients here get it. Stacy will have it everyday while she is here. At this stage we expect she will have 25 pushes over the next 4 and a half weeks.

Now Stacy has never delivered a child however I get the sense it might sound something like the moans, groans and snapped instructions that we have heard over the last couple of evenings.

The Push coupled with a range of detoxification techniques are designed to kill bacteria and infections, and reset her immune system so that it can find and recognise the cause of her MND symptoms and correct the problem.

That is the plan at the moment and time will tell how effective it is for Stacy. Similar plans seem to be very effective for other people here.

Other stuff:

Check out this excellent effort regarding the Great Falls fund raiser over at Cindy's blog. http://cindycieluch.com/blog/?p=4891
Love your work Cindy, well done.

Some of Stacy's close mates are coming down one at a time to do some nursing. This is good, we've worked out that we can use one extra set of hands when it is one of Stacy's intimates who can get in on all the gritty aspects of our current situation. We are looking forward to visits from these girls.

As I said overall we are going good. We feel like we are doing something, and that something will be good for Stacy's body. Thanks for all the love.